Death toll in Italian train crash reaches 14

Rescue workers today combed through the mangled remains of two trains that collided head-on in northern Italy killing 14 people.

Fire department officials in Bologna said that several train cars were so badly crushed and ripped apart that they had still been unable to thoroughly inspect them more than 24 hours after the crash on the line between Bologna and Verona.

Officials today discovered a 14th body, an unidentified man, the fire department said. Rescue workers did not rule out finding others and expected to continue the search for at least one more day.

The passenger train collided with a freight train yesterday in heavy fog in a field in Bolognina di Crevalcore, north of Bologna. The force of the crash left one carriage standing on end nearly perpendicular with the tracks.

Dozens of people were injured, most of them lightly. The ANSA news agency said that five people were still being treated in hospital.

Investigators were studying the possibility that one train failed to stop at a red light and wait for the other train to pass on a second track, news reports said. But a prosecutor in Bologna heading the investigation declined to comment on the report.

“We have not been able to verify any hypotheses with the information we have had from station records,” Prosecutor Enrico Cieri said.

The Civil Defence department said around 100 people were on board the passenger train, which was travelling south from Verona to Bologna. The freighter, which carried long metal rods, was headed north from Rome to San Zeno Falzano.

Though most train accidents in Italy are minor, the country has occasionally seen deadly crashes. The most recent was in July 2002, when a train from Palermo to Messina derailed in north-eastern Sicily, killing at least eight people.